


Living On A Thin Line

by theLazarus



Category: The Sopranos
Genre: F/M, sopranos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-15 23:31:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18083063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theLazarus/pseuds/theLazarus
Summary: You're driven, you're focused, you're a high-achiever and you enjoy your life--so why wouldn't someone tall(ish), dark and dangerous enter your life and shake it up a little? You just wanted to have fun but you got caught up in the allure of the Sopranos call.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've never enjoyed writing in the second person, hence why I use the first person point of view. Part of this is mere selfishness as I'm writing (so I can actually immerse myself in my own story); I also don't fully enjoy reading other fanfictions with the second person narrative, as it often feels distant to me. So, with that being said, I hope you can enjoy this fanfic and I also hope you can immerse yourself into the "I" narrative. If not, I hope you still enjoy it in some way.  
> I'm not proud of this. This was written over a period of re-watching the series and my way-too-late sexual awakening with regards to Christopher. Let's face it, no one would be proud of wanting to bang Christopher Moltisanti, but here I am, just a sad 25 year old with nothing better to think about. I also read every single dialogue of his in that Jersey accent of his and it kills me.

Neither of us were even drunk--I was a little tipsy after three glasses of wine, sure, but nowhere near drunk, and he had been sipping Diet Coke all night so he was stone cold sober. Therefore, it was surprising how quickly we moved from the couch to the bedroom, me tearing at the buttons of his shirt, pulling it down over his arms and letting it fall to the floor, his hands pulling down my pants before pushing me back onto the bed and moving on top of me.  
I ran my hand through his hair, my free hand feeling the bulge in his pants. Christopher Moltisanti. That name, when he told me, had presented me with a number of implications. Intercourse hadn’t been one of them, but there was something about those dark eyes which seemed to almost transform to a golden green in the right light, and his pouty face, the constant smoking, the quick escalation from soft spoken to emphatic if something upset him--and he was often being upset.  
I had to admit it, though--he was a great kisser. Our mouths moved together in such a sybaritic flow, like a perfectly rehearsed dance. He broke away to pull the wife beater over his head, then stood up and undid his pants before moving back to me and pulling my shirt over my head, leaving me in just my bra and panties.  
Pulling him back into a kiss, I eased him onto his back and straddled him, his still-covered bulge under the heat of my own body. Christopher reached his hands up and grabbed my breasts, squeezing them with a sigh.  
“You’ve got a condom right?” I asked, very gently gyrating over his hips.  
He gave me one of his classic “fuck you” faces which I had seen him give to many others even in one night alone. “You serious?” he replied, his hands on my waist.  
I looked at him intently, raising my eyebrows.  
He looked back for a moment with that same disappointed, pissy face before rolling his upper body over and reaching into his nightstand with a huff. He thrust the condom at me.  
“It’s for your benefit too,” I reminded him.  
“Right.”  
Christopher, however, did not seem so pissy when I pulled his boxers down and stroked him before rolling the condom over him. I removed my own panties and straddled him again, spitting onto my fingers to prepare myself, and slid myself on top of him.  
“Oh, fuck,” he exclaimed, grabbing my hips hard as I eased into riding him.  
I leaned down and kissed him, inhaling his scent of stale smoke, sweat, and remnants of a moderately expensive cologne that I was sure I had no knowledge of. He pulled me down, grabbing the back of my neck with one hand and my ass with other, coercing me to arch my back and lean against him as he thrusted.  
He grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled it. “You like that?” he asked with that thick Jersey accent. I winced and he let it go. “Sorry,” he said quietly, slowing his thrusts.  
I rocked against him and kissed his mouth. “It’s fine.” I hesitated, then said, “Slap my ass.”  
Christopher smirked and obliged, smacking me just hard enough to make my breath hitch. “So you do like it rough,” he noted, repeating the action.  
For a moment his name rang through my mind again--and all the associations--and I had to shake it away. It was my turn to smirk. 

 

That night, I had gone home--Christopher had offered for me to sleep over, though his disingenuous tone was apparent. Even as I sat in the backseat of the cab, all of my clothes feeling too tight and bunched up in awkward places from being thrown on immediately after sex, I couldn’t get the image of him in the afterglow of sex out of my mind--his arms behind his head, leaning against the headboard, freeing one hand to remove the cigarette from his lips to ash it in the tray on the nightstand, chest glistening with sweat.  
Moltisanti was a gangster though, and despite the surprisingly good, albeit random, sex we had, I had no plans of seeing him again.

 

But of course, as I was lugging in over-packed bags of groceries into my apartment a week and a half later, my cell phone rang. I dumped the bags weighing my arms down onto the kitchen counter and fished the phone out of my jacket pocket.  
“Hello?” My tone was harsh.  
“Hey--oh, what’s the matter?”  
It took me a minute to register who was speaking to me, but that voice clicked in my head eventually. “Nothing,” I replied, trying to catch my breath from the grocery war. “Just, ah, a lot of groceries.”  
“Why, who ya cooking for?” I could hear Christopher grinning at his own stupid crack.  
“Cooking for one is my speciality,” I said, not as clever as I would have liked to have been.  
“Why don’t you take a night off from cooking,” Christopher said, his words slow. “And have dinner with me tonight.”  
I paused and cleared my throat. “Uh, where?”  
“Vesuvio,” he answered. “Well, the new one. You ever been?”  
Another pause. “No, never.”  
“I’ll pick you up at seven,” he said. “Just gimme your address. Wear somethin’ nice.”  
“Christopher--”  
It was his turn to pause, and then came the accusatory, “Yeah?”  
I sighed. If anything, I would get a free meal and some good sex. “Alright. You got a pen?”


	2. Chapter 2

I would have preferred to just take a cab to the restaurant instead of let Christopher pick me up--I didn’t realize this until I was in the car, however. He was the one in control. When I walked out of my building, he had been standing in front of the passenger side of his Lexus, suited up in a black button-down, black pants, and a charcoal blazer. He took a drag from his cigarette as he looked at me and said, “I’m glad you still look good in daylight.”  
I rolled my eyes at that, but I was relieved he didn’t disapprove of my outfit. I hadn’t even needed to take notes from watching Goodfellas. 

Vesuvio looked like any other high-class restaurant--it wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Still, I didn’t frequent places like it often, so being seated by the hostess adorned in a sparkling indigo blouse with matching satin jacket and skirt, who almost seemed to scowl at Christopher and I, felt a bit strange.  
“That’s Charmaine,” Christopher told me in a low voice. “Artie’s wife.” He paused, waving his hand. “Well, whatever. They’re separated I think. Who knows.”  
“Oh,” was all I said. I looked down at the menu--the appetizers were the cost of what I would expect to pay for a good entree. God forbid I get a glass of wine to break the tension--although I realized my date probably wouldn’t have balked if I had caused him to break the bank a little. In fact, he might have found it insulting if I had chosen not to.  
“Heh-hey!” Artie greeted, approaching the table with a huge smile and placing his hand on Christopher’s shoulder. “How are you two kids? Oh, who is this little lady anyway?”  
I gave him my name and extended my hand to him. “It’s nice to meet you. Christopher told me you remodeled; it looks great.”  
Artie kissed my hand gently. “Thank you, sweetheart.” He turned back to Christopher. “What a lovely girl, this one.” He exhaled, putting his hands on his hips. “So--you want some wine? Ah, wait!” He put his hands back on Christopher’s shoulders and jostled him a little. “I forgot, Christopher. You want a club soda?”  
Christopher rolled his eyes and shrugged Artie off him. “Diet Coke.” He nodded at me. “You get what you want.”  
“Water is fine,” I told Artie, fiddling with a loose piece of the corner of the menu.  
“Diet Coke, water, I’m on it,” he replied, giving us both a final look before returning to the kitchen.  
“You could’ve gotten wine,” Christopher said. “Or whatever.”  
“No, it’s fine,” I said. “I don’t feel like it anyway. You don’t drink?”  
“I’m in recovery.”  
I raised my eyebrows. “Oh. Wow.”  
“What, is that a bad thing?” he replied, eyes large, his mouth paused as if he was just waiting for me to answer incorrectly so he could go off.  
“No, I think that’s great,” I told him. “I was wondering why, the other night, you were at a bar but you weren’t drinking.” I shrugged. “Thought maybe you were DD.”  
He sighed. “Sometimes you just get dragged to these things, y’know? It’s inevitable.”  
Artie returned with our drinks, setting them down in front of us and replacing his hands on his hips again. “You kids decided?”  
Christopher rolled his eyes again. “Artie, would ya give us a few minutes? Jesus, this girl’s never even been here before.”  
Artie nodded. “My apologies. And again, welcome to Vesuvio,” he said to me, that big grin back on his face. “You let me know if this young man here gives you any trouble.”  
“Oh, I will,” I replied, bringing the glass of water to my lips.  
As Artie walked away, Christopher sighed and looked down at the menu.  
“What do you normally get here?” I asked slowly, the list of 40 dollar entrees vibrating in my vision.  
“You should get the veal,” Christopher said, closing his menu and taking a sip of the Diet Coke. “Tender.”  
“I’ve never had veal.”  
His mouth opened and his eyes got big again for a second, softer this time, and he raised his hand in the air with a swatting motion, back over his shoulder. “You’re kidding.”  
I shook my head.  
“You’ve gotta try it.” He raised his eyebrows. “Tender.”

When the entrees came--I did order the veal, Christopher ordered the scampi--I tried to keep the conversation afloat even between bites of food. Granted, it wasn’t too difficult since Christopher liked to talk so much. But I was also still unsure of his intent, whether it be for that night or for more long term.  
“Tell me again what you do for work,” I said to him, slicing into the cut of veal. It came away from the blade of the knife like butter.  
“I’m a writer,” he said mid-chew.  
“I didn’t realize writers could afford to drive a Lexus.”  
He eyed me on that one: “I’m a screenplay writer. You make more money.”  
“Oh,” I replied with mock-surprise, placing the bite of veal into my mouth.  
“What do you do?” he asked.  
“I was the one drinking that night, not you,” I replied, pointing my fork at him. “You should remember.”  
“My apologies,” he said somewhat sarcastically.  
“PR. That’s why I was at the event at the Crazy Horse.” I paused. “Why were you there? Writing gig?”  
“I have, uh, associates who frequent the place,” Christopher told me.  
I hesitated, but asked anyway, “Is it hard being in places like that? With the drinking? When you’re in recovery?”  
“Some days are harder than others.” He shrugged, chewing, swallowing. “Meetings help. I went to a meeting that night, actually. Before I went to the Crazy Horse.”  
“That’s good,” I said, feeling stupid since I wasn’t able to completely engage in the conversation. I wasn’t an addict, and I really didn’t know any personally. In an odd sense, the fact that Christopher was an addict put me more at ease. If he had been a relentless, drug-abusing gangster with no self-awareness, that would have made me feel, perhaps, more in “danger.” But this was a gangster who was trying to go straight in a world of addicts and abusers.  
“What’d I tell you about the veal?” he asked. “It’s good, right?”  
I nodded. “It’s really good. I do feel sort of bad about eating a baby cow, though.”  
“Don’t feel bad,” Christopher replied, his brow furrowing slightly as he pierced a shrimp with his fork. “If they could, I’m sure cows would eat us.”  
Thank God Artie came at that moment to see if we needed drink refills, because I had no idea what to say to that.

Dessert, which was a warm chocolate souffle, had already made my senses heightened, and Christopher’s foot gently running up my calf from time to time had exasperated that. I ignored it the whole time, not responding physically, although he did catch me giving him my half-unintended flirtatious glances. After he paid the bill--“If Artie was a real waiter, he’d get a bigger tip,” he had told me, although Christopher had left an extra 50 on the table, however I really didn’t know if that was generous without seeing the bill myself--I did not need much coercing into intimacy, and apparently neither did he. I felt like I might burst by the time we reached my apartment.

Once I shut the door, Christopher grabbed my arm and pulled my against him, kissing me hard, and I kissed back, letting my jacket fall to the floor as I desperately fiddled with the buttons of his shirt, his blazer already torn open by my hands. He ripped away the shirt, the sleeves still hanging onto where his shoulder meets his armpit, and I peeled it away from him, pulling him back into me and kissing him with such hot desire that I actually felt embarrassed for a moment.  
“My bedroom is, uh, back here,” I said when I was able to break myself away for a second, the reality of the blouse riding up my torso and my skirt twisted around my hips and the lasting pressure from Christopher’s hand on my inner thigh hitting me in the broken moment. I attempted to regain some sort of composure as I took the lead into my bedroom, flipping on the light and pulling my blouse over my head and tossing it onto the desk chair.  
Christopher enveloped me from behind and grabbed my breasts through the bra, squeezing gently at first and then firming his grip. He brushed my hair aside and kissed below my earlobe to the crook of my neck, removing his right hand from my breasts and reaching under my skirt, the fabric laid over his forearm, and slipped his hand underneath my panties. His fingers glided over my pubic hair before gently easing their way inside me.  
I reached up and grabbed a fistful of his hair, arching my back. “I need you to fuck me,” I said, turning my head to kiss his mouth.  
He moved me along with his weight so I crawled onto the bed, pulling my panties down my legs and, after some awkward maneuvering, got them from around my ankles and onto the floor. I propped myself up again--at hearing the sound of Christopher’s belt being unbuckled, I declared, “Wait,” and shimmied my way over to my nightstand and removing a Trojan from the drawer, turning around on my knees, and handed it to him. ***you are trash***  
Wife beater still on, with dark chest hair surrounding his gold chain and gold Italian horn sprouting from the neckline, pants undone and boxers visible, he pouted, glaring at me.  
I thrust the condom at him again. “It’s either condom or nothing.”  
He rolled his eyes and begrudgingly took it from me.  
I faced the headboard on my hands and knees against the mattress and reached down to feel myself--no need for spit or lube this time.  
Christopher flipped my skirt up and grabbed my hip as he entered me, groaning, “Fuck” as he did so, and I whimpered, already feeling myself flare with carnal urges. He started to thrust and gripped my hips harder--I bit my lip, too sober to feel comfortable with fully letting go.  
I reached back and gently grasped his thigh. “Go slower,” I said breathlessly.  
He obliged, and I reached down to touch myself, collapsing my upper half onto the bed and the fact that I was smearing makeup on my sheets crossed my mind for a millisecond before I felt the orgasm surge inside of me.  
“Christopher--fuck--” was essentially what was expelled from my vocal chords as I came. I felt myself clench hard around him and then quickly relax, my muscles pushing against him, pulsating. My entire body writhed.  
“Jesus Christ,” Christopher said, also slightly out of breath, and sped up his pace a little. He pushed himself against me so I was essentially flat on the mattress and his whole body was on top of me. His mouth next to my ear, he asked, “You wanted this bad, huh?”  
That fucking voice, when he went slightly husky in tone, the intention to be intimidating--it turned me on relentlessly.  
“Yeah I did,” I admitted, straining to kiss him.  
He groaned and thrust particularly hard and deep, and I earned a “Fuck me” which I found ironic and amusing even post-orgasm. He slowed down and eventually pulled out, rolling over onto his back, panting slightly.  
I followed suit, resting my hand on my chest and the other above my head. “That was--” I stopped, trying to find the proper words, the best words, to describe what had transpired, but all I could come up with was, “Great.” Before I let myself sink into the bed, I slowly got up and went across the hall into the bathroom to pee.  
“That’s all I get?” Christopher asked when I returned, my comforter draped lazily over his lower body. “‘Great?’”  
I smiled, running my fingers through my hair in an attempt to undo some of the recent knots. “It was great,” I replied. “Can I have a cigarette?”  
He leaned over the bed and reached for his discarded pants, pulling them up by the belt loop and retrieved a pack from one of the pockets, putting one between his lips before handing the pack to me. His wife beater had risen up, and for the first time I saw his abdomen; this would have been nothing out of the ordinary, except he had a huge scar in the middle of his stomach.  
“Wait, what is that?” I asked, looking at his exposed abdomen.  
He looked down. “I got shot,” he said.  
I paused for a few seconds. “When?” I asked.  
“Last year,” he said.. “I was clinically dead for like, a minute.” He lit his own cigarette, then lit mine.  
I looked at the scar again, or what was visible of it. He lifted up the wife beater, revealing the entirety of it, which ran from just below his navel and up about six inches. “Holy shit,” I uttered. I gently ran my fingertips over it, the thicker skin palpable even through his hair. “What was it like?”  
“What? Getting shot?”  
“Well, that, and also, you know, being dead.”  
He inhaled, looking ahead. “Like no pain I’ve ever felt before or since,” he told me. “Like, uh, a burning and a stinging, the worst kind. At first I didn’t even know what happened until I saw the blood.” He inhaled again. “The guys who shot me, they were two kids I knew, I worked with them. Total fuck-ups.”  
“What happened to them?” I asked, morbidly curious.  
“It was taken care of,” Christopher replied.  
I nodded and as I exhaled the first drag of my cigarette, I coughed a bit--it had been a long time since I had smoked. I never did it enough to call myself a “smoker,” but I did it enough to have done some proper lung damage, most likely.  
“What about the dying part?” I pried.  
“I went to Hell,” he said matter-of-factly.  
“What?”  
“I saw my father. It was an Irish bar. The bouncer told me I would be back for good.”  
“You’re kidding.”  
He laughed a little. “No, I’m not kiddin’. It was Hell.”  
I looked back at the scar as I smoked, with Christopher’s arm draped around my shoulders, our thighs touching. The phrase “it was taken care of” repeated in my mind. It pained me to acknowledge that I wasn’t afraid of him; I wasn’t even disgusted by him, even though it was inevitable that the blood that was on his hands was not merely his own.


	3. Chapter 3

It became so that I was seeing Christopher once or twice a week, usually. For dinners, we usually went to Vesuvio, although I could occasionally coerce him to go somewhere that didn’t exclusively serve Italian food; the sex was great, and the pissy faces over the condoms were still well at play. Sex and sleepovers were pretty evenly distributed among our apartments, however I think Christopher preferred being at my place so he could leave at a moment’s notice, which he had already done once and with very little explanation. I had almost pried--why would a screenplay writer have to leave in the middle of the night? But I didn’t, although I’m sure he knew I knew at least some of what he was about--he wasn’t as dumb as he looked.  
It was at Vesuvio, again, that I had to bring myself to intervene just a little. We were only halfway done with our entrees when two older men; one moderately losing his hair and glasses situated over his beady eyes, and the other with slicked back black hair, dyed, with silver above his ears. They both smiled at us, somewhat mockingly, and moved past Charmaine to approach our table.  
“This must be who you’ve been hiding with lately,” the man with the silver and black hair remarked. He gestured to me with a forward motion of his chin. “You look like a nice girl, sweetheart. Be careful with this one.”  
I looked at Christopher, who was visibly fuming but saying nothing.  
“Where are our manners?” the same man said, looking at his friend. “Let us join you, we’ll get some drinks.”  
“Actually, we were just leaving,” Christopher said dryly.  
“Ho! You’ve still got food on your plates!” the man replied.  
“Stay for a drink,” the other man said.  
Christopher leaned past the man to gesture to Artie, who responded swiftly.  
“Hey, you two joining ‘em? Want me to get a--” Artie started to say, but Christopher stopped him.  
“Gimme the check, Artie,” Christopher said. “And wrap these plates up, will ya?”  
Artie looked hurt, but he nodded and grabbed our dishes. “Sure.” He smiled at me and I smiled back--he may have been overwhelming at times, but at least he was a welcoming presence.  
Christopher stood up and reached into his jacket pocket for his wallet, throwing down some larger bills. “We have to go,” he told the men. “You two enjoy your meal.”  
“Chrissy!” the first man called after us as Christopher dragged me along by my wrist.

Outside the restaurant, I stopped him before he could climb into his car.  
“We had about half of our meals on those plates still,” I told him. “You couldn’t have waited? You paid good mon--”  
“Yeah, I paid good money!” Christopher snapped back at me, retrieving a cigarette.  
My jaw clenched and I paused, then replied, “If you wanted me to pay at any point, all you had to do--”  
“No, no, you’re not fuckin’ payin’.”  
“Then what is the fucking problem?” I shouted. He looked away, taking a drag, so I continued: “Christopher, you know I know who you are. If you want to dodge your associates or whatever, we can go to other places, or--”  
“I’m not dodgin’ em,” he replied calmly, then suddenly looked angry again, glaring at me. “And you don’t know one fuckin’ thing about me.”  
I looked at him and his glare came as a challenge to back down. I relented. “If that’s what you think,” I said. “Whatever. I’ll walk home.”  
Christopher grabbed my wrist. “You’re not walking home.”  
I shook him away. “Jesus, where can this even go?” I asked, but not necessarily to him. “I mean, who are those guys?”  
Christopher stared hard at me, the cigarette lingering in his hand, before he finally said, “The one who won’t keep his fuckin’ mouth shut is Paulie. The other guy is Patsy.” He took a drag. “So what?”  
“Listen, if it’s easier for me not be a part of your life--”  
“Don’t put words in my mouth,” he warned.  
“I’m just saying--”  
He grabbed my arm and pulled me to him. “Do you have a problem with this?” he asked. “With any of it? Because if you do, it ends now.”  
“No,” I replied.  
After possibly internally examining me somehow, he exhaled. “Okay. Good.” He took another drag before throwing the cigarette aside and going to open the passenger door.  
“But what do you want?”  
He rolled his eyes. “Can we get back to your place and we’ll find out?”

\--

We sat smoking on my bed, the window open again, allowing the cool spring breeze to occasionally waft in and dissipate molecules of smoke. Christopher was relaxed against my headboard, while I was erect next to him.  
“I just didn’t wanna be sitting there, with those guys,” he started to say, gesturing with his cigarette. “Watching us. Watching you.” He took a drag. “That fuckin’ Paulie, always in my fuckin’ business.”  
“Theoretically, if we continued seeing each other, I would have to meet them anyway,” I replied. “Right?”  
“Sure, whatever.”  
I sighed. “Do you mind if I go get a drink?”  
“It’s fine.”  
“Want anything?”  
“You feel like making me coffee or are you too pissed for that?”  
I leaned forward and kissed him. “I can do that.” As I got up, I resisted the urge to look over my shoulder at him--the very image of him was still titillating to me. His darkness, both literally and figuratively, drove me mad in every seemingly possible way.  
In the kitchen, I poured some Maxwell House into the pot. As it brewed, I pulled the bottle of Grey Goose from the cupboard below the counter that also stores large mixing bowls and poured myself a shot--or two, who knows--into an empty wine glass and downed it, hissing as the bite hit. I retrieved the open bottle of five-dollar wine bought earlier in the week and poured myself a generous glass, then pulled out a mug for Christopher’s coffee.  
The boring all-black ceramic would have to do. I poured the steaming coffee into the cup and, drinks in hand, paraded back into the bedroom. He was still smoking, staring at the ceiling idly.  
I gingerly repositioned myself on the bed and handed him the mug before taking a few large sips of wine.  
“You’re already flushed,” he remarked, pressing his cigarette into the ashtray which he had bought for me, and held his palm against my cheek. “That wine strong?”  
“I just haven’t drank in a while,” I said.  
“That makes two of us.”  
“You’d tell me if it bothered you, right?” I asked. “Drinking?”  
He stroked my jawline with his thumb. “Yeah.”  
All I felt I could do was nod.

\--

Smoking had become a regular habit--I even bought packs of Marlboro Reds, the same ones Christopher smoked. I had curbed my casual drinking even more, although, admittedly, sometimes it felt awkward to not get a glass of wine with dinner, but I also didn’t want to make Christopher stand out more than he already did. I wasn’t blind to the irritated looks he shot me when I stuck with the ice water, but I didn’t shoot him looks even though he was drinking Diet Coke almost constantly. His “associates” were seemingly at bay--there had been no more run ins, and I wasn’t quite sure whether to be relieved or insulted.  
I might have felt relieved if Christopher had merely failed to show up to the arranged dinner with my father. Once I had finally told him about the man who had been occupying my free time, he was insistent on meeting him over dinner. Getting Christopher to agree to attend had been difficult, but I was persistent, and giving him head to ease the thought of a “family dinner” helped me as well.  
“Where is this ‘Chris Maccaveti’ person?” my father asked, using the alias Christopher had told me to use: I didn’t find it very convincing, but my father seemed to accept it, saying the name not with disdain over who it was referring to, but slight irritation because he, and I, were being kept waiting over our drinks, cool droplets of water gliding over the clear glasses.  
“He’s just running late,” I replied, glancing over my shoulder at the entrance. “Relax.”  
“I always wanted you to end up with an Italian boy,” my father said, the candlelight glimmering in his golden-brown eyes. “I just didn’t think you would end up with one who had no conception of time.”  
“Dad, for the love of--” I started to say, but the weight of Christopher’s hand on my shoulder, sliding down to press against my collarbone, interrupted me. I turned and he kissed my cheek.  
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” he said softly. He averted his attention from me to my father, extending his hand, which my father took. “Christopher Maccaveti,” he declared. “It’s nice to meet you, sir.”  
My father gave him a single, firm shake. “Nice to meet you too. Traffic bad?”  
I rolled my eyes as I took a sip of water.  
“I had a meeting that ran late,” Christopher replied smoothly.  
“What is it that you do?”  
“Dad, I told you,” I interjected.  
“I’m in the movie business,” Christopher answered with some pride; fake or not, I couldn’t tell. “Writing screenplays.”  
“I see,” my father replied. “How does one get a job like that?”  
“Uh, well, I started by getting a mediocre assistant job on set,” Christopher explained. “Then I started to move up. You just gotta pitch your ideas to the right people.”  
“What are you working on now?”  
“It's sort of a thriller, sort of gangster. Like Goodfellas, ya know?”  
“Gangster, huh?” my father replied, turning to look at me.  
The waitress saved me by returning to get our drink order.  
“Why don't we get a bottle for the table?” my father suggested.  
Before I could protest, Christopher said, “Yeah, let's do that.” he looked at me as if he meant to say, “keep your mouth shut,” and after a second of mental evaluation, I decided that was what I would do. 

Watching Christopher take that first sip of wine prompted me to squirm in my seat. I wanted a cigarette but I knew my father would throw a fit, so I gulped down most of my glass.  
“So, dad, uh, Christopher is coming as my date to this event at The Water Club next week,” I announced.  
“Oh really?” my father responded. “Doesn't that have the possibility of making you look bad? Bringing a ‘date?’”  
I exhaled, glancing over at Christopher, who looked back at me while taking another sip of wine. “No, it doesn't make me ‘look bad,’” I said. “Why would that make me look bad?”  
Christopher came to my rescue: “I'm excited to see the remodeled casino. It's been a while since I gambled.”  
I guess I couldn’t say the same thing about myself.


	4. Chapter 4

I didn't say anything about the drinking until we were back at Christopher's place. He eased onto the couch, an unlit cigarette in his mouth, and I followed suit, settling down next him. After he lit the cigarette and took the first drag, I gently eased it into my own fingers and inhaled deeply.  
“The wine?” I probed.  
He threw his hand in the air. “Can’t I make a good first impression? You want your father to know I’m in recovery?”  
“I doubt he would have balked if you had declined wine--”  
“Oh really?”   
“When are you going to a meeting?” I asked.  
“When are you gonna let me fuck you without a condom?” he retorted, taking the cigarette back.  
“Well, there’s two things to add to your to-do list,” I replied. “Go to a meeting and go get a fucking STD screening. I’ll go with you.”  
“Fuck you,” he spat, raising his hand again as he did, standing up.  
“Oh, fuck me?” I mocked, standing up after him.  
“Weren’t things good?” he asked, ash falling from the cigarette onto the carpet. “Why are you being like this?”  
“I don’t want you to resent me,” I admitted. “Because you went to dinner with us and you felt pressured or whatever to drink.” I exhaled hastily and sat back down. “Jesus Christ.”  
“What was I supposed to do?” Christopher replied, standing in front of me, staring me down.   
“Jesus, there’s no talking to you,” I muttered, getting up and moving past him to the door.  
“You walk out that door, it’s over,” he warned, grabbing my arm and spinning me around, pinning me against the door, his knee in between my legs. He moved his hand from my arm to lightly grip the side of my neck. “You hear me?”  
I moved forward so my crotch slid along his knee. “What can I do?” I asked.  
His face softened, but his grip lingered on my throat.   
“I really care about you, you know,” I told him.   
After a short pause, he said, “If I didn’t care about you I wouldn’t have met your father.”  
“Fair enough.”  
He kissed me, easing past being gentle quickly and glided his tongue into my mouth, his grip on my throat tightening slightly. I kissed him back eagerly, moving my tongue to his, and let him bite down on my lower lip.   
Christopher grabbed my hand and guided me to his bedroom, pressing the cigarette that had fused out in his hand into the ashtray as we went. He pressed me against the bed as we continued to kiss. I ran my hands through his hair, my fingers moving with the natural flow of its wave.  
“I really like you,” he huskily said into my ear before gently biting my neck.   
“I like you too,” I replied, feeling like I was a teenager again. I brought his mouth to mine, feeling the firmness of his shoulders through his shirt, how his muscles flexed as he moved, and became, once again, intoxicated by the scent of smoke and Paco Rabanne. 

\---

I looked around the crowded casino, trying to spot Christopher, inevitably placed in front of blackjack. It was too hard to spot him, so I decided to give it a rest for some time and enjoy getting just a tad inebriated; not so much that I would look like a fool at my company’s own event, but enough to where I felt more comfortable in the throngs of strangers, smoke clouding the room, hollers from men, the dice rolls and the slot machines glimmering.   
“Where’s your date?” my coworker Bryce asked me, who was another event coordinator. “Gambling away his life savings?”  
“I don’t think he likes to risk money,” I replied, taking a sip of the fresh Old Fashioned the bartender prepared for me, and placed a couple bucks on the counter. I stood up and peered around the room once more. “I’m sure he’s having a blast, though.”  
“We did a good job,” Bryce remarked, also standing up. “This night, so far anyway, seems to be a success. Cheers.” He raised his glass and I obliged, clinking against his before we both took sips.  
“I’m inclined to agree with you,” I told him. “Although how many people are going to object to a night of gambling?”  
“Speaking of that, I’m gonna go try my hand with roulette,” Bryce told me.  
I nodded, watching him weave his way through the crowd, then contemplated which direction I would go in to find Christopher. After my own maneuvering through the crowds, my prediction had been correct--there he was at blackjack, and there he was with a scotch in his hand.   
I grabbed his bicep and squeezed lightly. “Christopher,” I said hoarsely. “The fuck?”  
“What?” he replied, playing innocent, ignoring me.  
“Let’s go talk,” I said, squeezing harder.  
He finally relented but refused to look at me until I had dragged him to the empty stairwell on the other side of the room, and when he did, his aggression came at me like two arrows out of his eyes.  
“Do I have to say it?” I asked, gesturing at his drink.  
“The fuck you want from me?” he replied loudly. “I took your fuckin’ STD test--did you think I was some fuckin’ cooze hound? You don’t trust me?”  
“Your anger is misdirected,” I said. “Why are you drinking?”  
“It’s a fuckin’ party, that’s why. At a casino,” he added. He sighed, looking at the scotch, then looked back at me. “I’m under a lotta pressure.”   
“Yeah, I know,” I replied too quickly. “Your beeper goes off every fuckin’ minute.”  
“Fuck you, it’s my job,” Christopher snapped.   
I exhaled sharply and looked up at the ceiling, letting my head drop back. “Fuck, I know, Christopher.” I inhaled and looked at him again. “You know what? Fuck it. I’m not in control of you. Keep fucking drinking for all I care.” I turned and started to walk away, anger brewing in my veins, a sharp headache blossoming in my temples.   
I kept walking without looking back even when I heard the smashing of glass behind me.


	5. Chapter 5

Christopher didn’t call me and I didn’t call him. After the incident at the casino, I tried to avoid him, although that was simultaneously difficult and easy; I knew which places he didn’t frequent or didn’t go to at all. On the other hand, he was unpredictable and could show up anywhere.   
I was smoking constantly, and thus had become more friendly with a few people from my office as we shared our time on the warm May days, desecrating our respective cigarette butts underneath our shoes before trodding our way back into the building, our suit jackets and blazers tainted with the scent of tobacco.   
Focus was difficult. As much as I didn’t want to admit to myself, whatever feelings, however abstract they had been or were, I had for Christopher were still lingering in my chest like phlegm. I couldn’t bring myself to delete his phone number, and I felt stupid in hoping he hadn’t deleted mine. He probably hadn’t, I realized, out of forgetfulness or laziness, or both. 

Of course I had to go to the small concert at the Crazy Horse; Bryce and a few others had urged me to tag along, and with nothing better to do, I decided, fuck it. I didn’t think Christopher would be there on a Thursday night, or maybe I had been secretly hoping to run into him after almost a month of us not existing to one another.  
Bryce treated us all to a round of tequila shots, which I gratefully took and swallowed easily, trying not to be conspicuous about holding it against my mouth to get the last drops. I ordered another with my own money before cooling it with some water, lighting a cigarette, positioned behind the rest of my group as they faced the small and empty stage.   
“Fuck me,” I muttered to myself as I exhaled smoke. Christopher was trailing through the room behind a much taller, larger man, Paulie, and a shorter man with a deep scowl stitched across his face. I looked away, then back at him. He looked at me but regarded me with nothing but sternness and then diverted his attention back to his crew.   
I sipped my water and grabbed an ashtray from a nearby table. My coworkers were chattering about the newest addition to our office, Julianna, who replaced our old receptionist when she went on maternity leave. I didn’t even know why I had gone out--sitting at home with a bottle of wine would have been just as thrilling. I took a final drag of my cigarette before stamping it out in the ashtray and headed for the bathroom, squeezing my way through the masses.   
I whipped around when I felt a strong grip holding my wrist; it was Christopher, who else?   
“What?” I asked, bitterness soaking through the word, but he just pulled me to the side of the stage, out of view from the club’s patrons, shrouded in darkness.   
He shoved me against the wall and pinned my arms above my head. He looked into my eyes, the glowing lights from inside the club barely hitting us from our corner, before kissing me ferociously, moving his tongue into my mouth. He let my arms go and kept me pinned against the wall with his left hand around my neck and slid his right hand under my skirt, slipping underneath my underwear. I kissed him back, pulling him close, my fingers running through his hair, and using my other hand to rub his crotch.  
I hastily unbuckled his belt and he pulled my underwear down, propping himself against the wall with one hand as he guided himself into me. I grabbed him against me and bit down on his neck. “Oh, fuck, please,” I gasped, and went to kiss him again.  
Christopher’s thrusts were slow, deep, and hard. I felt off-balance in my heels; the only thing keeping me from falling over was the brick wall behind me and gripping his waist. I dug my nails into his sides as the orgasm swelled inside me and my thighs tensed and I clenched around him.  
“Fuck, Christopher,” I moaned.   
He continued for a few thrusts and then paused, moaning quietly, his head lolling back, his grip on my hips loosening. Slowly he moved out of me, and I felt the warmth inside and clung to his shirt.   
Suddenly I felt exposed, and I also didn’t know what to say to him. I pulled my underwear back up my legs and readjusted my clothing, putting my skirt back into place. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, only viewing Christopher out of my peripheral as he also readjusted himself.   
“You drunk?” he asked, buckling his belt.  
“No,” I answered. “You?”  
He shook his head. “No.”  
I nodded.  
He sighed. “I’ve been to meetings,” he said. “I went on a bender after that casino night. Drinking, H, coke--”  
“Heroin?” I asked.  
He only shot my a glare before continuing, “I’m trying to get my act together.”  
“Good,” I said, averting my eyes. I sighed and looked back at him. “I missed you,” I admitted.  
“Oh yeah?” he replied with a cocky smirk.  
“Yeah,” I breathed, my body still recovering from my orgasm. “I did.” I straightened the collar of his shirt, smoothing the fabric down with the undersides of my fingers.   
“Listen,” he began, putting his hands on my shoulders and staring into my eyes. “The way I see it, there are a few options--one, you be in my life and you are in my life. You know?”  
I nodded.   
“Two, you’re in my life but some things--a lot of things--are separate. You don’t hear about ‘em. You don’t know about ‘em. You do not ask about ‘em.” He sighed. “Three is, this is where we end things. I don’t wanna do that but--”  
“Christopher,” I interrupted. “I wanna be in your life. And whatever is easiest for you--I’ll try to work with that. I’m not a gangster. And I don’t need to know about that stuff, in fact it’s probably better if I don’t--” I paused; sighed. “But I feel like if I don’t ever ask questions, I’ll just get--I’ll get too frustrated. I mean, is your whole life just…” I trailed off, not wanting to reference another mob movie and not wanting to acknowledge the truth of Christopher’s life.   
He twirled a strand of my hair between his fingers. “For once in my life, I’m not gonna worry,” he told me. “Not about this.”  
“Okay.” I had to trust that in the moment, even if I didn’t really trust it in the long run. Christopher Moltisanti. That name, with all of its implications, was the name that rang through my brain all day and night.


End file.
